Ever since the Another Zi-O arc the show has gotten really good. And this tribute is easily the best out of all. Like the Blade arc, the tributes here felt exactly like a contiunation of the series. It does help that Shouichi's actor is open to reprising Agito and they used him really well in this episode.

Also, I kinda hope Takaiwa was suiting up as Agito seeing that Agito is his first main Rider role.

Subs took forever this time, but at least it was worth the wait. It was so nice to see all of these old suits in action again. Agito holds a very special place in my heart and I definitely feel like this episode did it justice. These last couple tributes have really been doing what I wanted the show to do the whole time. It's just a pity that it took until the 2/3rds mark for the show to figure out how to actually make use of its anniversary factor.

Most importantly, we got a "Shouichi-kun" from Mana. I'd have been really disappointed if they brought Rina Akiyama back and didn't give her the line that made up about 20% of her dialogue from the original show.

Well, first of all, it's time to do something I was going to do back when Decade was transforming into him last year, and note how freakin' good Agito looks on camera even all these years later. It's seriously the single most refined, elegant, awesome looking base form any Rider has ever had. It's not even necessarily my favorite, but it's just that great.

Kinda like this episode, which blew away the high expectations I had.

First of all, Nobuhiro Mouri is back in the writer's chair, and has apparently made it his mission to immediately reinforce what I said back during his first stint on this show about him having a much crazier vision for Zi-O. What's the plot here? Another Agito zombie apocalypse? Yeah, sounds about right. Although even that it isn't as crazy as the biggest surprise this episode: character development for Tsukuyomi! What a novel concept.

It's like now that Zi-O's cast has firmly established their ability to stand on their own, we can have amazing episodes like this where both them and the guest characters get to truly shine without either one stepping on the other. I don't think it was a mistake doing the early tributes the way they did, but it's impossible to deny that seeing Agito here was way cooler than seeing, say, Ex-Aid back in episode 3. There's tons and tons of proper shout-outs to Agito here (the return of Shouichi's Agtio-Sense was probably my favorite), and between that and the chemistry of Zi-O's three Riders, which by this point has been refined down to a science, this one is a real winner.

And do you know the best part? Did you see all those really interesting, very kinetic shots throughout the episode? Turns out the director for this arc is none other than one Teruaki Sugihara, who you might know as the main director for a little show called Lupinranger VS Patranger.

I'm beyond pleased with this episode, and as usual for Zi-O, the back half of this story promises to be even better.

If the Den-O tribute doesn't feature a scene where Trinity form Zi-O is arguing with itself while Climax form Den-O argues with itself, I am going to be really disappointed.

Even better: Have a scene where we see fast cuts between the inside of Den-O Climax and Zi-O Trinity, the Imagin and the Zi-O crew all bickering and fighting until Momotaros shouts: "Enough! It was already annoying in here without you three twerps, get lost!", and then the camera pans out to reveal that the sets for each "mind" are built right next to each other.